Humphreys' Passion, Energy Continue to Drive Ladyjacks Volleyball Program
8/22/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - September 5, 2015 • Columbia had won five of the last points in set number three, trimming a once-comfortable nine-point advantage for Stephen F. Austin down to five. Although the Ladyjacks were up 2-0 and needed only one more point to secure the straight-set victory, head coach Debbie Humphreys called timeout to make sure her team was still focused on the task at hand. Inside Shelton Gym the crowd remained on its feet, and once the huddle broke, junior Justice Walker leaped for a pass from junior Shannon Connell, hammered down her 11th kill of the match and set off a celebration not just for the win, but for Humphreys’ 600th career win as well.
Yes, there was a sense of accomplishment for Humphreys, but it was dwarfed by the sense of relief she felt in knowing that this one was finally out of the way.
“We can get the focus back on the players. Back where it needs to be so we can get set on winning ball games,” said the Ladyjacks’ 29th-year head coach when reminiscing about her thoughts regarding the 600-win milestone that just 19 other active NCAA Division I coaches have reached.
“The only reason I even know those milestones are coming is because people who are paying attention to the numbers know that they’re coming and verbalize that to me. Otherwise I’d have absolutely no clue.”
Painted by Humphreys as no different than the 599 wins that came before it, number 600 provided the latest coaching landmark for one of the nation’s best, who is also the longest-tenured head coach on staff at Stephen F. Austin. Her career winning percentage of .660 is 46th among all active Division I coaches and the 616 total wins are the 19th-most.
Of the 13 teams that make up the Southland Conference, none possess more regular season championships (eight), tournament championships (four) or All-Conference selections (71) than Stephen F. Austin. All of that is due to the leadership Humphreys has provided to the Ladyjacks in her career.
Building up and maintaining a Southland Conference volleyball powerhouse and becoming one of the winningest active NCAA Division I coaches were hardly long-term goals for the Rochester, Ill., native when she set foot in Nacogdoches. A self-described undersized player at Texas Tech from 1982-85, Humphreys earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Lubbock, Texas, institution and was close to selecting a career path far off from college athletics.
“I did some work in cardiac rehab at a hospital and I really enjoyed that,” said Humphreys who will begin her 29th season at the helm of the Ladyjacks in 2016. “That was probably the other route I would have gone – something in a medical field or corporate fitness – but I couldn’t get coaching out of my system. I decided to see if an opportunity presented itself and if it did, give it a try.”
That opportunity came in 1988 when SFA director of women’s athletics Sadie Allison hired the 23-year-old Humphreys as the Ladyjacks’ head volleyball coach. Volleyball, however, was only half of the job description for Humphreys. The remaining 50 percent of her obligations were in the kinesiology department as a swimming instructor, but as the years progressed and the wins kept piling up her responsibilities as an instructor shrank by a considerable margin.
“I’m sure I was not prepared to be a head coach at that point in time, but I wanted the opportunity to coach the way I saw fit to see if that could translate to success,” Humphreys said.
Some of the earliest hurdles Humphreys had to navigate in her first seasons in charge of the program boiled down to numbers – specifically the small age gap between her and the student-athletes she was coaching. With only five years separating her from the youngest class of Ladyjacks, there was a degree of confusion among outsiders that sometimes led to Humphreys being overlooked in her role.
“When we would travel places, people would always mistake me for a player and that was something that made me mad,” said Humphreys. “Because I wasn’t much older than my players, I had to be a little more hard-nosed than I wanted to be so they understood who was in charge.”
Though she is, by her own admission, no longer in danger of being misidentified as one of her players, one thing that has not changed through the years is Humphreys’ competitiveness and her direct method of communication. With each team comes a new set of personalities, likes, dislikes and challenges. Identifying with Humphreys’ style is a common ground that all players must arrive at.
Triggering the desired results for each individual student-athlete and each team requires Humphreys to be knowledgeable of both the situation at the time and what kind of individuals she is dealing with.
“I don’t raise or lower my level of competitiveness, but what I portray to my team has to change based on the situation we are in. There are certain moments where they really need to see it and other moments where they need to be calmed down.”
Now in her sixth season as an assistant coach on Humphreys’ staff, Lauren Lanford sported Ladyjack colors from 2003-06 and attributes her strong working relationship with Humphreys in part to what she learned from her head coach as a student-athlete.
“She is very straightforward and I had never had a lot of coaches that just really said what they thought, dealt with it and then moved on,” Lanford said. “Initially it presented a problem because she would say something then I would get inside my own head and wonder if she was mad, but once I realized that she just moves on after she gives advice I was able to adjust a lot better.”
All of that non-sugar coated advice doled out in the middle of a match or in practice stems from a competitive desire that extends well beyond her scheduled time in the gym. No matter what it is – checkers, cards, or even just games with her family – Humphreys’ goal to be the victor has always been a large part of her personality.
That same competitive drive has been passed along to her family as well. Humphreys and her husband, Richard, are the parents of Will and Regan – both of whom may not display their mother’s fixation to win on the outside but are still competitive in their own right.
“I want to make as many things a competition as possible and once it turns into a competition I want to win,” Humphreys said. “I don’t know that either one of my kids are as crazy about it as I am in terms of being competitive, but they just do it in a different way.”
Although the ultimate endgame of winning is still present, it is something that has been tempered slightly in some areas thanks to her almost three decades of coaching experience and knowing when to shift the spotlight onto something larger.
Refocusing the priorities of the program occurred shortly after a legendary run by the Ladyjacks from 2004-07. Beginning with a 3-1 home win over Southeastern Louisiana on October 5, 2004, SFA constructed a record 62-match Southland Conference winning streak that generated four-straight regular season titles and a pair of NCAA Tournament berths. Just over four years following the start of that dominating stretch, Lamar came to Nacogdoches and ended that streak with a 3-2 win. That setback forced Humphreys to be retrospective in her analysis of the situation and summarily center her team’s concentration on things aside from wins and losses.
“Personally I had become too focused on outcome because we had created a monster with that winning streak,” Humphreys said. “We were expected to win and even though we were meeting that expectation in each of those matches, we lost sight of the right steps we needed to take to get there and forgot what was truly important.
“Those steps were the things our program was built on: taking care of our business in the right way, treating each other with respect and building quality relationships within our team and campus community. If we do all those things, the outcome will take care of itself.”
Earlier in August, Humphreys’ 2016 Ladyjacks were chosen as the preseason favorites to win the Southland Conference title in the league’s preseason coaches’ poll. While a ninth conference crown would be another welcome addition to the Ladyjacks’ trophy case, Humphreys is quick to underscore the pursuit of titles and secondary value of accomplishments on the court to her team.
“One of the things I frequently tell our players is if our main purpose is to win volleyball matches and win championships, that’s really sad. We need to have our sights set on something much bigger and much more lasting than that, and in the past few years this program has gotten back to those things we feel are truly important.”
Inevitably, other athletic departments around the nation took notice of what Humphreys was accomplishing at Stephen F. Austin and extended offers of employment to SFA’s longtime head coach. The choice to stay or go hinged on a number of factors, but in the end Humphreys’ passion for SFA outweighed everything.
“When the opportunity to move on to a bigger-name school presented itself, I realized that Stephen F. Austin was where I needed to be, where I wanted to be and where I was supposed to be,” Humphreys said.
“I’m extremely passionate about what I do and that’s what drives me. The opportunity to constantly be in a position to influence young females and help them make that transition from the comforts of home to the real world – that’s ultimately where my passion comes from. In this position, you have the ability to help them move down the right path and see them then be successful once they leave here.”
Through it all – SFA’s first Southland Conference title in 1994, the 3-2 NCAA Tournament win over Alabama in 2006 – Humphreys’ excitement for her job appears inexhaustible even as she approaches year number 30 leading the Ladyjacks.
“In coaching, you wear so many different hats that if you didn’t enjoy what you had to do today, that’s find because you’re going to have something different to do tomorrow,” said Humphreys. “That’s the neat thing about this job is that we get to do something different every day and I hope to continue here for a long time, continue winning championships and growing this program.
How long is a long time? Lanford has a guess.
“Debbie will be 80, wheeling or walking herself out on the court and still getting after it,” said Humphreys’ former player and current assistant coach. She lives and breathes SFA volleyball and she does it all with an excitement every day that a lot of people wouldn’t have almost 30 years into their jobs.”
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